by Claudia Pritchard | Jul 2, 2026 | Music
Lisette Oropesa as Elvira in Bellini’s ‘I puritani’. Photo: Tristram Kenton Verdi’s Il trovatore is said to need only the four best singers in the world, but pretty much the same goes for the earlier composer Vincenzo Bellini’s I... 
by Claudia Pritchard | Feb 4, 2026 | Drama, Music, Uncategorized
Boris Godunov/Mark Wigglesworth Royal Opera House, January 29, 2026 Reluctant to rule, Boris Godunov cuts an arresting figure, not with his high-profile bragging but with his capacity for self-doubt. In the second revival of Richard Jones’s spectacular... 
by Claudia Pritchard | Dec 10, 2025 | Drama, Music
Jacquelyn Stucker is the reluctant bride in “Ariodante” (c) Marc Brenner Georg Frideric Handel: Ariodante Royal Opera House, London, December 9, 2025 Characterisation in Dutch director Jesske Mijnssen’s debut production for the Royal Opera,... 
by Claudia Pritchard | Nov 7, 2025 | Drama, Music
Ausrine Stundyte as the dying Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case. Photo: The Royal Opera ©2025 Camilla Greenwell Exactly 100 years ago, Czech composer Leoš Janáček finished his late opera, The Makropulos Case, a work of startling modernity that overlaid a legal... 
by Guy Rickards | May 4, 2025 | Drama, Music
Barrie Kosky’s new Walküre, photo © Monika Rittershaus Review by Colin Clarke The first day of Barrie Kosky’s Ring (remembering Rheingold is the ‘Vorabend’) carried through various tropes from his Rheingold, of 18 months ago seen at Covent Garden: an environmental...